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Greeting Card Studio is a program that you can create greeting cards in. You can create Valentine Cards, Christmas Cards, Birthday Cards, and more. You can select the size card that you want to create. There are also poems available that you can use to put on your greeting cards. In this tutorial I will show you how to use Greeting Card Studio.

First, you will need to open your program by going through your start menu or double clicking the shortcut on the desktop. When your program opens, you will need to click the New Project link on the right side of your window. The New Project window will open and you will need to select the size card that you are creating. Drop the Preset box down and select the size that you want. Then select the view that you want, portrait or landscape. Click the Create Project button.

Next, you will need to select your card background. You can use a solid color background, a premade card in the program, or an image of your own. For this tutorial we will use a premade card.

Tick the Card field and click the Select Ready Card button. When the window opens, you will see the different cards that are available. Click the card that you want to use and tick the Fit to Ratio field at the bottom. Then click the OK button. Your card will open in the main window.

Your card may shrink so change the view back to 100%. The view is located on the right of your program. Now you can add text to your card. To add your own text, click the T icon at the top of the window. A text window will open and you can type your text in that box. You can change the font options in this window.

To insert a poem, click the Greetings tab. Then you will see the different greetings that are available. You can drop the Subject box down and select the subject. Then you will see the different greetings for that subject. Highlight the greeting that you want to use and click the Copy button at the top of the box. That will automatically paste it in your text field. Click the OK button to insert it.

Now you can add clipart to your card if you want too. Click the Clipart tab. In this section you will see the different clipart that is available. Click a clipart to select it and then click the Add This Image button. That will place the clipart on the card. You can move it by dragging it with your mouse. You can shrink it down by dragging the corner inward.

Now you are ready to print or email your card. To send it by email you will need to export the card. File gt; Export gt; and select the format. I would go with jpeg. Then type a name for your card. Go to your email and insert the card as an image or attachment. To print the card click File gt; Print.

You can do many more things in the Greeting Card Studio program like adding frames, using gradients, and solid backgrounds. This is just a basic tutorial to get you started using this program. Here is a tip. Every time you do something to your card, you will need to scale the image back to 100%. For some reason the image scale constantly goes up and down when you are creating a card.

Living your dream of owning a small business is threatened when the economy causes revenue shortfalls in your company. As you fall on hard times, you look anywhere for ways to save your company. The economic recession presents you with unprecedented challenges. You try to draw upon your business experience. What happens when you run out of answers?

When you move quickly from business success to business failure, it is hard to resist getting caught up in the momentum of financial failure. Your best strategy is to keep your head up and make the best decisions for your dying company. How do you make business decisions while you watch your company go down the tubes?

Try these tips for struggling entrepreneurs beleaguered by the economic recession:

Get Professional Business Advice

Your best bet is to seek assistance from professional small business development analysts. This type of advice is offered free online from the Small Business Administration or in person at your local small business development agency. An analyst can look at your business and offer suggestions for salvaging your company. The advice may not save your business, but it might help you to get some value out of your business before it closes for good. You can also consult an attorney to discuss the possibility of filing bankruptcy for your company.

Turning to New Strategies

If you have the physical setup of a business such as office space, equipment, and furniture, you might be able to quickly set up another business in this space. Your new venture may not save your existing business, but it can utilize the resources of the old business. Other options are to let another business owner use your space temporarily or to combine resources with a similar business and save on costs. You might be able to make enough income from one of these strategies to inject capital into your failing business.

Finding an Investor

Some investors seek investment opportunities in failing businesses. Although there may be some conditions of accepting capital you would not normally agree to, finding an investor with capital to save your once-viable business may be the ticket for surviving the economic recession. You need to carefully negotiate the terms of the investor’s stake in your company. You also need to use strategic business planning to wisely spend the investor’s capital.

The economic recession presents a difficult challenge to small business owners. You have many resources at your disposal, including the assistance of your small business development agency. Don’t give in to the momentum of business failure statistics. Go down with a fight!

Many industries have realized that by allowing their customers to pay their account balances at a later date they can increase the amount of business that they receive as well as improve their public image.

However, it is vitally important for businesses that allow deferred payments to establish a formal policy for handling the collection of these types of debts. There are many options that a company can use to protect their interests in this type of situation: charge accounts, invoicing systems, and deferred payment agreements.

Customer Charge Account

The most commonly used deferred payment option is the customer charge account. These accounts use a plastic charge card that is electronically encoded with the customer’s contact information and account information. When they make a purchase their card is scanned into a machine that adds the purchase onto their balance owed. The customer receives a printed statement each month that details the purchases that were made during the month, what the minimum acceptable payment is, and what their total balance due is. Customers are charged an interest rate that can run from 0% up to 24% annually. These high interest rates are imposed to encourage customers to pay off their balance as soon as possible, as well as to protect the company’s financial interests in cases of non-payment and charge-off situations.

The advantage of this type of deferred payment option is that it provides the company with an electronic record of charges and payments, which allows for easier bookkeeping. Also because the customer is required to sign a contract when opening a charge account the company has documentation that they can use for collection measures, or to defend their position in court if the account goes into default. The drawbacks to this deferred payment option are that it requires special software and machinery, and it requires plastic charge cards to be manufactured and monitored. Also a financial institution will be needed to back and monitor the credit card program. These extra costs can make a charge card program very expensive for a smaller company to operate.

Invoicing System

The second deferred payment option is to implement an invoicing system. Customers are allowed to purchase services or products with no money down. However, they will be given an invoice that details their account activity and balance, as well as the terms of the payment that is expected. For example a computer consultant may make an office call to set up a DSL connection for Company A. At the end of the month the consultant prints out an invoice that contains the hours that he worked, the price of his labor, traveling costs, and material costs. At the bottom of the invoice are the terms for paying the invoicing, such as Net 30. This means that the invoice must be paid in full within 30 days. If the company fails to pay the invoice within the 30 days, then the consultant will send a statement to the company that shows the remaining balance as past due.

The advantages of this deferred payment method are that it is easy to manage, it is inexpensive, and special software is not needed. Almost any company, regardless of size can manage this type of deferred payment method, and that is why it is the most commonly used option. The drawbacks to this program include: it is more difficult to collect unpaid bills, mistakes in tracking invoices and payments can cause problems, and it requires bookkeeping skills to manage effectively.

Deferred Payment Agreement

The final deferred payment option is to draft an official deferred payment agreement. Many companies use deferred payment agreements to allow their customers to benefit from the services and products offered by the company now even if they don’t have the money to pay for it now. In exchange for the company’s services or products the customer musts sign a deferred payment agreement that states that they promise to pay their account balance by a certain date, or according to certain terms. This agreement is commonly used for tuition payments at colleges and universities. It is used to allow students to start classes before their grant and student loan payments arrive, on the condition that they promise to pay the tuition in full by a certain date.

The deferred payment agreement needs to contain various pieces of information. First the terms of the agreement must be outlined including: when the first payment must be made, if a down payment is required, how much each monthly payment will be, what payment methods are acceptable, and if and how much interest will be charged. Next the customer’s information will be entered including their name, id number, address, and payment method that they will be using to pay their financial obligations. After this the company’s service or products that the customer is purchasing with the agreement will need to be outlined. For example in cases of education institutes the semester, year, and classes will be outlined. The next section will need to include the responsibilities of the customer including the customer’s responsibilities to pay the balance, and their responsibility to pay for any legal costs associated with collecting on unpaid balances. Also a statement will need to be made at the end of this section that acknowledges that the customer has read, understood, and accepts the terms of the agreement. The final part of this document will be a signature section for the student and the company representative to sign.

The benefits of this deferred payment option are that (1) it is relatively simple, (2) it produces a legally defensible contract, and (3) it allows the company to sell more services and products during slow periods of the year. The drawbacks of this deferred payment option are that (1) it can be difficult to track all contracts, (2) it requires a double entry bookkeeping process, and (3) paper contracts can be lost.

In this tutorial of mine, you will learn how to convert or change a normal colored and contrasted photo to a high contrast. You can basically use any type of image or photo for this tutorial: landscapes, portraits, sport captures, etc. Almost any photo is suitable to practice on. Also don’t be afraid to try black and white, colored, or monotoned photos. Each will produce a unique and different effect on your photo.

What you might not know is that this technique is used in art photography, advertisements, editorial photography, and any other photography that you can think of. Amazingly, many professional photo editors will be using the same program you do: Adobe Photoshop.

Adobe Photoshop is a digital image editing program that can be used on both PCs and Macs. If you do not already have a version of Photoshop downloaded on your computer, you can buy the program at www.adobe.com (although the price is steep) and even try out the Adobe Photoshop CS6 extended beta (the newest Photoshop version). The try out is free and lasts 30 days, but make sure you have sufficient space on your hard drive for the program.

Now to start the tutorial, you will need to open up a picture on a new canvas. Remember you can use any type of image. If you want to make it black and white before you begin editing the photo, go to Image -> Adjustments -> Desaturate.

Next, duplicate the layer by pressing CRTL+J (as the hotkey) or by going to Layer -> Duplicate Layer.

Then, open channel mixer (Image -> Adjustment -> Channel Mixer) and apply these values (if you made your image black and white first, you can skip this step completely and move on to the next):

Output Channel: Grey. Red: +100%. Green: 0%. Blue: 48%.

Now, press CTRL+U or go to Image -> Adjustment -> Hue/Saturation to open Hue and Saturation dialog and selector menu and give these specific values:

Hue: 100

Saturation: 100

Lightness: 0

The image after this step should be a neon green color.

Finally, duplicate the base layer and move it to top of the layer palette. Change its blending mode to Linear Light. If you want to, you can again duplicate the top layer.

That’s it. Then you are done and you should have a funky, new, high contrast photo that can be used for anything. Make sure that if you’re going to print it out, it is 300 or higher DPI.